Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Accusation of the Chaldeans
Daniel 3:8-12
8 Therefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near and brought accusation against the Jews. · WEB
Professional rivals turn the decree into a weapon, and their charge is precise: these men do not serve your gods.
Therefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near and brought accusation against the Jews Daniel 3:8.
Somebody was watching the crowd rather than the image. The informers are Chaldeans — the guild whose failure filled the last chapter, whose lives Daniel had saved Daniel 2:24, and over which he now presides Daniel 2:48. The phrase behind brought accusation is vivid in the Aramaic idiom: they ate the pieces of them, the language of devouring a rival. This is career resentment wearing the robes of religious zeal, and it has found its opening in a decree about worship. The charge is against the Jews — an ethnic accusation, aimed at a people through three of its members.
You, O king, have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn... shall fall down and worship the golden image; and whoever doesn't fall down and worship shall be cast into the middle of a burning fiery furnace Daniel 3:10–11.
The informers open by reciting the king's own law back to him, at length and with every instrument named. It is skilled work. Before the accused are mentioned, the king is reminded that his personal decree is on the table and that a penalty is already attached; the case is framed so that mercy would look like a monarch retreating from his own word in public. Men who want a killing rarely ask for one directly. They ask a ruler to be consistent.
There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego Daniel 3:12.
And the second barb: whom you have appointed. The foreigners the king promoted are the ones defying him — an insult to his judgment folded into the charge, and a reminder of the grievance underneath it. These three had been given provincial office at Daniel's request Daniel 2:49, and their advancement over native-born men has been resented ever since.
These men, O king, have not respected you. They don't serve your gods, and don't worship the golden image which you have set up.
Three charges, escalating, and every one of them true. They have not respected the king — that is, they have not complied. They don't serve your gods, a settled practice rather than a single lapse, which tells the reader that these officials had been visibly, consistently, unremarkably faithful in ordinary times, and that everyone knew it. And they will not worship the image. What the accusers have grasped correctly is that the decree exposes the underlying loyalty: a man who serves another God can be trusted with an empire's accounts for years without incident, and cannot bow at the signal. The one thing the state cannot have is a subject with a prior allegiance.
And Daniel is not in the story. The text says nothing of where he was, and speculation adds nothing. The narrative that gave him a den of lions of his own Daniel 6:16 simply leaves this trial to three men, without the protection of the empire's second-ranking official and without the reassurance of his presence.
held with reason What this mark means